Conservative Commentary Since 2012

America’s Turkey-Eating Tradition Under Assault

The environmental Nazis and killjoys on the left have a hard on for destroying America’s traditional Thanksgiving holiday. In a HuffPost article, The Environmental Impact of Your Thanksgiving Dinner, author Alexandra Emanuelli laments that our travel to be with family is increasing our carbon footprint and killing the planet. “Four people flying a 600-mile trip is the equivalent of 10 times the CO2 emissions of the Thanksgiving meal.”

But it isn’t just your travel plans she takes aim at. She also advises that we just take turkey off the menu. “Meat and meat byproducts (cheese, butter and heavy cream, for example) have a larger environmental footprint than plant-based ingredients.” Perhaps Emanuelli will be enjoying butterless rolls and a side of kale with mushrooms this year but most Americans still prefer a glistening brown turkey with gravy on the side.

As with all of the left’s environmental arguments, there is the tendency to gloss over the pesky fact that China and India are the globe’s biggest culprits of industrial waste and environmental damage, not the United States. But facts be damned, we must be made to feel guilty eating Aunt Ann’s oyster stuffing and sweet potatoes with cane sugar.

What is really under fire here is the relentless, continual and draining assault on traditional Western families. Just six days ago, the Alliance of World Scientists published a piece in BioScience declaring a “climate emergency,” which in part encourages global “family planning,” a buzzword for abortion. The truth is, that the only group of people who will stop having children based on dubious climate declarations such as this group of researchers, are women in Western countries. Africans and Muslims are not going to stop having large families for the sake of a nebulous “climate” ideology being pushed by white elites in Western nations.

Unfortunately, this type of propaganda is having an affect on young women in Europe and America, many of which now believe that having a child is hurting the planet. Recall the spectacle of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) sniffling from the podium in Denmark at the C40 World Mayors Summit that climate change has destroyed her dreams of having a family. “I speak to you not as an elected official or a public figure, but I speak to you as a human being. A woman whose dreams of motherhood now taste bittersweet, because of what I know about our children’s future.”

AOC has made previous remarks that having children may be unethical, specifically right after rolling out her Green New Deal. In a live Instagram feed to her millions of followers, AOC declared: “There’s scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?”

It isn’t news that Thanksgiving is under attack. It has long been a favorite target by academia and the left for its supposed injustices to indigenous North American Indians, its ties to prayer and gratefulness and the narrative that the first Americans were only evil white people seeking to colonize another foreign land. It has also been derided in countless blogs and articles as something that you have to “survive,” with innumerable articles published on how to deal with difficult family members or skirt issues on your marital state.

At a time when Americans are suffering the greatest levels of depression, mental illness and loneliness in its history, it is really unforgivable that the left wants to encourage Americans to stay home in their childless apartments and eat kale alone for the sake of the environment. It is poorly thought out ideas such as these that have made progressive socialists such great fodder for scorn and derision and why we must reject this type of thinking.

Tradition, family, and yes, even religion, is what grounds families and gives people a sense of belonging and purpose. The left knows that if America was to ever have strong families and a renewed love for God and country, their ideas would die in the dark. Pass the butter and pack your bag, it’s almost Thanksgiving. #Reignwell